Despite amendments being made it appears the fundamentals have not been altered. Without urgent action from parliament and the public, April 1st will see the NHS fundamentally reconfigured as a competitive market system.

38 Degrees has today published expert legal advice
which makes very clear that the government has NOT listened to the outcry from
grassroots groups, the medical profession and the unions about the broken
promises and privatising effect of the ‘Section 75’ regulations.

In the advice, David Lock QC says:

"There does
not appear to me to be anything substantial in the new Regulations
which responds to these very real concerns. The assurances given by
Ministers in Parliament about the freedoms that commissioners would have
to commission services in the way they consider best for their local
populations...do not appear to be honoured by these new Regulations just
as they were not honoured by the old Regulations...[if] the contract is capable
of being delivered by more than one provider, the CCG must hold a
competition even if it is not in the interests of patients to do so...the
introduction of wording about integration and co-operation between
providers does not amount to any substantial change to the effect of
the Regulations."

Even before seeing the latest
legal advice, the BMA had expressed
concerns about the effect of competition and called for a full
parliamentary debate on these regulations. The RCGP has criticised
them too, saying they do not go far enough to improve things. Even Dr Mike Dixon, president of the body
representing the CCGs and previously one of the Act’s staunchest supporters,
has expressed
his concern over the new regulations, saying:

“There is a danger that it still leaves open the
possibility that a clinical commissioner who wants to contract with a good
local provider with a strong track record, who is signed up to the aspirations
of the commissioner, and is providing a good service close to people’s home,
might still have to offer that service to someone else as part of a competitive
tender or part of AQP.”

There is not much time left to stop the government
pulling the wool over people’s eyes.
Labour, backed by Green and Lib Dem backbenchers, has laid down a new
Early Day Motion. Campaigners are urging all concerned about the NHS to write urgently to their MP, asking them
to sign the new Early Day Motion (EDM) 1188 to overturn these
regulations. Keep Our NHS Public has produced two letters that people can
use, which rebut in detail the government claims about these new regulations. These
letters are here - one for MPs who signed the earlier, now invalid, EDM and one for MPs who did not. Campaigners are also suggesting that people
write to Lib Dem and cross-bencher peers raising their concerns.

What else can people do? Well, 38
Degrees will be meeting health minister Norman Lamb this
Thursday and is asking people to vote in a survey about
what they should say to him. Based on 38 Degrees legal advice,
campaigners from Keep Our NHS Public and elsewhere are recommending that we
should demand Norman Lamb scraps the new regulations and goes back to the
drawing board until they can meet the promises that were made to the public,
parliament and Clinical Commissioning Groups. Sue Richards from Keep Our
NHS Public said, “we do not consider that the idea of more ‘guidance’ will do
anything significant to protect the NHS from privatisation. ‘Guidance’ can be
re-written any time the government feels like it, without any chance of
parliamentary oversight.”

Finally, anyone who will be in London
at 12
noon on 26th March is encouraged to join the lobby of parliament
called by Save Lewisham Hospital
and other campaign groups. Expect Lewisham’s famous ‘buggy army’ and a wide
range of speakers

Far from putting competition ‘back
in its box’ as some have suggested, these regulations roll out the red carpet
to it. None of this is what we were promised, in fact quite the opposite – it
is a fundamental and undemocratic change to our NHS.

Campaigners are looking to MPs and
peers of all parties to do everything in their power to persuade the government
to scrap these regulations and go back to the drawing board. In the mean-time we should let the CCGs get
on with the job they were promised, of making decisions which genuinely reflect
their judgement of what is best for patients.

About the author

Caroline Molloy is Editor of OurNHS and a freelance writer. In 2011/12 she was part of a successful campaign which reversed one of the largest planned NHS privatisations in the country, involving 9 Gloucestershire hospitals. Since then she has been campaigning alongside local and national groups to defend the NHS.

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